The juggernauts of the games industry aren't pushing the envelope when it comes to pushing our beloved entertainment medium forwards. Thankfully, there is hope for indie developers...
Lately, it seems that every other story of mine is lamenting the decline of some very PC-specific features that have enriched our collective gaming histories: dedicated servers, mod support, afterthought ports and, well, you get the idea. But one area that continues to push PC gaming—nay, the entire gaming medium—forwards is independent games development. One only has to look as far as the massive addictive success of Minecraft, the impressive destructibility of Breach or the self-referential magic-infused mayhem of Magicka to see that the indie scene knows how to get it right.
Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade (Winter of Arcade in Australia, but that hardly has the same ring) includes independently developed titles that are afforded impressive levels of success and the PlayStation Network is no stranger to the release of well-made and addictive indie titles (Trine springs to mind). In fact, in many ways, the indie game scene is where the risks are being taken and the understanding that developers have to work hard to push new ideas is being permeated most. After all, independent titles don’t have a Call of Duty masthead that equates to instant sales; they have to work hard to be noticed in an ocean of choice.
Recently, we pointed out that Epic Games was one of only three companies still promoting the PC from within the PC Gaming Alliance. It seems that Epic has a vested interest in encouraging new ideas and talent to enter PC games development by way of the Unreal Development Kit (UDK). Earlier in the year, Epic made the pleasantly surprising announcement that they’d considerably upped the royalty-free threshold for any developers using the UDK. According to the press release they issued at the time of the news, developers don’t have to pay royalties on any wholesale earnings (i.e. money actually received after a retail/online sale) unless it passes USD$50,000… which is about AUD$25,000.
Jokes about the state of America’s dollar aside, this is obviously great news for any budding development team looking to get their novel game idea out into the gaming wild. With the interest in indie gaming on the rise, even outside of gaming circles (hell, there’s a movie being made), it seems that we’re constantly being forced to look away from ‘AAA’ developers and put our hopes in indie developers for a much-needed injection of originality. When each successive Call of Duty/Assassin’s Creed/Rock Band title is released that favours evolution over revolution, our expectations of what should constitute acceptable progress in a sequel—and the gaming genre—are watered down somewhat.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m tired of industry juggernauts announcing that we should be getting excited about a few new additions to upcoming games when they should be pushing the industry forward with revolutionary concepts. It’s a sad state of affairs when a small team of indie developers can forge titles that elicit more novel excitement than publishers that have access to massive development teams (not to mention, massive chequebooks) but are too scared to push the boundaries of the tried and tested gaming formulas.
What do you think?
Issue: 137 | June, 2012